MEET THE BROWNS
Powerful melodrama with uplifting moral values for teens and adults.
Should You Watch It?
Meet the Browns is a sincere, emotionally forceful drama about poverty, family, prayer, and unexpected hope. Angela Bassett’s heartfelt performance as Brenda holds the movie together, especially as she portrays the pain of a single mother trying to protect her children while keeping the family afloat.
The film’s strongest moral emphasis is that family members should help relatives in need. It also encourages kindness, prayer during hardship, and churches helping needy people. Drug use and dealing, gossip, and other wrongdoing are rebuked, though the movie still includes references to prostitution, substance abuse, and some obscenities.
Tyler Perry fans seeking more comedy may be disappointed because this is more dramatic than comedic. For teenagers and adults who can handle the content, it is worth seeing.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESBrenda is a single mother raising three children in poverty in Chicago. She wants her teenage son Michael to focus on school and basketball, but the factory where she works closes, putting the family under even greater pressure.
Then Brenda receives a letter announcing the death of the father she never met. The letter includes bus tickets to Georgia for the funeral and the reading of the will. Desperate for help, Brenda takes her family there and encounters relatives she never knew existed.
Is It Any Good?
Three stars means a worthwhile but imperfect film. Meet the Browns has the emotional power of the melodramas that inspired Tyler Perry, with a story centered on the trials of Brenda and Michael.
Angela Bassett gives the movie its greatest strength. Her performance is heartfelt and compelling, particularly when Michael considers selling drugs because of the family’s struggles. Without her talent, the film would be much weaker.
The movie is more dramatic than comedic, so viewers expecting more comedy may be disappointed.
The Worldview
The film’s worldview is Christian in its emphasis on prayer to God during continuing struggles. It focuses more on moral messages than on theological teaching, encouraging kindness and rejecting gossip, drug use, and drug dealing. Its central family message is that relatives should help family members in need. The movie also praises churches that help needy people.
The film presents these values positively while not making theological points about the need for salvation through Jesus Christ. It includes immoral and unbiblical behavior, but that behavior is often rebuked. The story also reflects positively on American life through its pro-family moral messages.
At its center is the belief that people in hardship need compassionate help from family and the wider community. Scripture gives that responsibility a clear shape: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Content Summary
Very strong Christian worldview where prayer to God despite difficult circumstances is encouraged that, however, focuses more on its moral, pro-family messages that reflect positively on American life rather than making theological points about the need for salvation through Jesus Christ, but there is some immoral, unbiblical behavior that is often rebuked throughout; 21 mostly light obscenities (mostly the “h” word but a few “d” words) and eight light profanities such as Oh, Lord! And God!, plus angry man starts to say MF but stops before getting to the “f” word; a scene where a person is shot once in the back but survives; lightly implied sexual immorality in verbal references to illegitimate children, a reference in one scene to other unseen women who are able to pay for childcare because they sell their bodies, and references in one scene to a dead patriarch being a pimp before he got saved by Jesus, plus two women admire a man’s muscles and build; no nudity but some female cleavage and one minor female character wears tight pants, yet no salacious images; alcohol use and one older female character is a lush but her drinking is rebuked but grudgingly put up with by her relatives; a character’s use of marijuana is rebuked and the local drug dealers trying to ensnare the heroine’s son are rebuked; and, gossip rebuked, a deadbeat father is mean to his son and the son’s mother, and managers of a factory sneak out on the workers when the plant is closed.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
Brenda prays while facing poverty and disappointment. What does faithful prayer look like when circumstances do not change quickly?
Psalm 13:1–6 · Philippians 4:6–7The film stresses that family members should help relatives in need. Who around us may need practical help, and how can we offer it wisely?
Galatians 6:2 · 1 John 3:17–18Michael considers selling drugs because of his family’s struggles. Why can desperation make harmful choices seem attractive, and how can a community respond?
Proverbs 1:10–19 · Ephesians 4:28The movie praises churches that help needy people. What should care for people in hardship look like in a church?
Acts 2:44–45 · James 2:14–17The Final Word
Meet the Browns is a heartfelt, morally commendable melodrama. It is more dramatic than comedic, but Angela Bassett’s performance and the film’s emphasis on prayer, family care, and compassion give it real value. For teenagers and adults who can handle the content, WORTH THE TRIP — TEENS AND ADULTS.
